PS: To BernCar: Yeah, I think we agree on this. The Ed degree is an unnecessary obstacle for teaching in most public schools, like a guild restriction, but not quite the same, being mandated by the State governments.

I would hope, as I wrote in the post, that for Elementary School, one could teach what the kids need with ANY college degree. For High School, I could see math teachers needing a math degree, etc.

This credentialism wouldn't be necessary in a small private school without the bureaucracy. For example, why not hire that retired engineer to teach the algebra and geometry, that budding novelist who works in the coffee shop, literature, etc?

PS: Responding to the moderator's point, I have always thought we would be better served, at least in the grades beyond elementary school, for teachers of math, biology, etc., to have degrees in math, biology, etc., instead of degrees in math education, biology education or those other degrees where you substitute "education" courses for additional courses in your subject specialization. (I exempt elementary grades on the off chance that there are stages of development in which certain pedogogical techniques are useful and others are not. Don't know much about that Piaget theory though.)

I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--one of the sharpest guys I knew in math was a math ed major, but I suspect he took many of his general electives in math. As credentialism advances, simple bachelor's degrees in many areas are not enough to get you jobs in those fields. For those not inclined to go the graduate school route (and who can blame them?), teaching posts would provide good jobs and they would know the subject matter. That speaks to the moderator's point abut math graduates having to get education certificates or degrees before they could teach. I think mostly they're going to get practicums (on-the-job training, in effect). The whole thing smacks of a guild restriction.

PS: Thanks for the comments guys. I hope I was clear that, yeah, it's not usually the teachers that want all that "higher" "education". I knew a man and wife who were both Mathematics graduates (the guy at least Masters and his wife either the same or Bachelors) that just wanted to teach math in high school. They were forced to pay up and get the Masters in Ed by State law, knowing it was a complete waste.

It's a scam.

PS Think I used the word “masters “enough in that post?

PS. Very few working teachers will extoll the virtues of ED school. Most states, though now require a masters after a certain number of years. It’s idiotic. Fortunately for me, I was grandfathered in so I never had to get a masters. I would strongly argue there’s almost 0 correlation between the quality of teacher and whether or not they have a Masters. Of course once everybody has to have one of the teachers will have one so I guess that’s 100%. Trust me on this though, education classes were the absolute worst.

PS Back in my primary/secondary days (1950s snd 1960s) in a 99.5% white suburban Chicago school district, perhaps the superintendent had an advanced degree in education. Some of the high school teachers had masters degrees in their subject fields. Fancy (and as pointed out useless) education degrees aren’t required to teach whites kids what white kids need to know. I’m sure that race isn’t the only factor in the credentialization of education, but it must be a significant one. And yet none of the programs devised by all these MSs, DEds, and PhDs have succeeded in teaching the majority of black kids what white kids need to know.